This is the beautiful Library of Celsus at Ephesus in Turkey, now nearly 1,900 years old.

The building was built both as a library to hold some 12,000 scrolls and as a memorial to Tiberius Julius Celsus, a Roman senator, consul and governor of Asia. Consul Celsus was rich enough to leave enough money to build the library, and he was buried in a sarcophagus inside it, this somewhat surprising mix of functions being apparantly as unusual then as today. The Library was completed in 135 AD, and was one of the best stocked of ancient times. It burnt down in an earthquake about 130 years later, leaving only the facade. It was rebuilt as a nymphaeum, which is rather less racy than it sounds, and was just an elaborate water feature. This too was destroyed, including the facade, in the late Byzantine period. The facade was restored in the 1970s to the state you see it here, and today it is one of the highlights of Ephesus.

It's a stunning piece of architecture, and the stonework is incredibly carved. Need I say it makes me very happy to see so much money and effort expended on a library? Yes, it does. Well done, Consul Celsus!

It's also hard to tell that I was surrounded by about 10,000 people when I took this picture. This place is beset by tourists from dawn till dusk, and getting people-free photographs here is a serious challenge. In the parking lot outside, they were playing a game of 'fit 100 tour buses into a parking lot designed for 20' that involved a lot of hooting. It was quite a sight, and made me glad we walked the two kilometres from the nearest town instead of bussed.

This is Pamukkale in Turkey. Its name translates evocatively into Cotton Castle, which reminds me of the Big Rock Candy Mountain of the depression era song, though unfortunately a lot less sweet. It was Easter yesterday, and my brain is still in sweet mode. Yum.

But back to Pamukkale. It's called Cotton Castle because it's covered from top to bottom in white travertine, deposited here over thousands of years by the action of hot springs. The travertine forms naturally into cascading terraces and pools. The effect is very strange, very beautiful, and very dazzling without sunglasses.

The mineral rich waters have had the reputation since ancient times of possessing healing properties. A spa was built here sometime in the 200s BC to take advantage of these properties, and the city of Heirapolis grew up around the spa. It was a popular place for the sick and for retiring to. Today the ruins are still visible on top of Pamukkale (you can see some in the background), and are currently being excavated. In a country that possesses far more than its fair share of ruined Roman and Greek cities, it's not the most spectacular of ruins, and is easily eclipsed by the incredible travertine formations.

People still come here in their droves as tourists, and it's now a World Heritage Site. You can see the floods of tourists arriving in the disance, all barefoot to minimise damage to the travertine, and carrying their shoes in their hands. We got up very early and managed to just beat the crowds to the pools and to get relatively people-free photographs. Most of the pools are off-limits to protect them, but swimming is allowed in a few of them. The pools are actually quite shallow and slippery, so people paddle tentatively in rolled up pants more than swim. When we were here, a lot of people found it appropriate to strip down to bikinis and pose in exaggerated Zoolander poses for their photos to be taken, with complete seriousness and lack of irony. It made for great people watching!

Before and After

This is an interesting shot for this blog, because it's not really an HDR shot in the usual sense. I've combined two shots instead of the usual three, one taken at 0 exposure compensation and one at -2 underexposed. Instead of Photomatix HDR software, I then combined the two shots by hand in Photoshop. I ended up using mostly the -2 shot, but bringing in the highlights from the 0 shot to give a larger range of tones and more contrast to the final image.

In my previous post I talked about how I used the concept of Luminance Masks from Tony Kuyper's blog to make a hand blended HDR as an alternative to Photomatix. This post shows a side by side comparison of the Photomatix version of the image on the left, and the hand blended version on the right.

Bear in mind that I haven't worked as much on the Photomatix version, which could be made to look a little better, but it still serves as a good comparison. Also bear in mind that I've only done one hand blended HDR to date and many, many Photomatix ones, so Photomatix has the advantage there. I'm not going to talk much about how to do hand blending as Tony does an excellent job of it on his blog, and I recommend that you read it.

Here's what I think so far:

Ease of Use. Photomatix is far and away the easier of the two techniques to use. Tonemapping your three bracketed images in Photomatix takes all of a minute, and the final image can then be cleaned up and adjusted in Photoshop, which should take from a few minutes to an hour at most. Hand blending requires far more decision making, followed by a lot of selections and actions in Photoshop. These can be speeded up by automating in Photoshop, but even so this first image took me three evenings to complete. With practice, I could reduce the time a lot, but it would still be nowhere near as fast as Photomatix.

Control. Photomatix has a few sliders to twiddle and then it throws out a tonemapped image. There's not much control, but it does what it needs to do very well. The downside is that you can only work on the overall image, and you seldom get it that you are happy with the entire image. Hand blending lets you have an incredible amount of control. You can split your images into as many zones of tonal range from light to dark as you like, and you can decide exactly which ones to blend together in which part of your image. The choice is so open that it's quite overwhelming, but that's the fun of it. On the image above, I think Photomatix has flattened the rock texture in the cave too much, and has done odd things to the sky, but has improved the texture on the light ground outside the cave. Hand blending allowed me to improve the inside rock texture, although I think I could have done a better job on the outside ground.

Picture Quality.The way in which the techniques differ makes a big difference in final image quality. Photomatix blends your three bracketed photos together into one tonemapped image, and in the process can increase the amount of noise in the image considerably. If you go too aggressive on the settings, you can also get unpleasant looking haloes forming on edges between light and dark areas (for example at the rock / sky edge of the above image). With hand blending you layer your bracketed photos on top of each other in Photoshop. You then use masks to determine which parts of which image you want to see. Because you aren't processing the underlying images, you aren't increasing noise, forming haloes, or producing other undesirable effects on your image. The difference is very apparent to me when I look at a full size version of each of these images, but makes less difference at web sizes.

Look. Photomatix has a look that has become quite prevalent in the world of HDR. Some people love it, some hate it. I enjoy it, especially when not overdone, but it remains a very distinctive look. What I've enjoyed about hand blending so far is that it doesn't seem to automatically have a look, or at least it's more natural, and you are far more free to make the HDR image match your memory of the scene.

In summary, Photomatix will allow you to process your HDRs quickly, they will look pretty good, but will have a distinctive Photomatix look. Hand blending will take considerably more time and Photoshop skills, but will allow for a better quality image with a very high degree of control in the blending and final look.

If you were a monk living in the Selime Monastery, this is the lovely view you would have from your room ... of the volcano. Maybe to remind you of the fire and brimstone that awaits you in the next world if you don't behave yourself in this one? The volcano is the reason this room is carved from the rock, and why there are so many cave houses in Cappadocia. This volcano, and the two others in the neighbourhood, have over time covered the whole area in a volcanic rock called tuff, which is quite soft as rock goes. From about the 5th century AD the area became popular with early Christians who were hiding from the Romans and later from the Turks, and they accommodated themselves by carving dwellings out of the tuff. This entire monastery complex is carved from the rock, with chapels, sleeping rooms, store rooms and stables, and dates from about the 13th century. There are several other churches nearby, also carved from the rock, and some are still covered in beautiful wall paintings dating back many centuries. Nearby there is even an underground city carved from the rock, which descends 11 stories and 85 metres underground. The whole Cappadocian region has long been distinctive for its cave dwellings and many are still in use even today. It's an amazing place to visit, and totally weird and alien.

Before and After

This is my first attempt at manual HDR, and I'm quite pleased with the results. I used the usual -2, 0 and +2 exposure bracketing and hand held the shots. When it came to tone mapping, I abandoned my usual Photomatix and used the luminance mask technique of Tony Kuyper to manually blend my three shots. This let me carefully select which parts of each exposure to use, and allowed me to keep the HDR look quite subtle. The down side is that it took many more hours to produce the final result, and the Photoshop file was approaching a gig in size at some points. Even with 4 gigs of RAM my iMac turned into iMolasses. I'm sure more practice will speed the workflow up considerably though.

The before and after shots show the 0 exposure compensation shot on the left, and the hand blended HDR on the right. Next time I will post a before and after with the Photomatix version of this image, and chat about how the techniques differ.

I saw all these carved stones set out against a wall at the Isa Bey Mosque in Selcuk, Turkey. I'm not sure if they are gravestones or some other kind of marker, but they looked to me like they had been set up by some archaeologist, all collected together, so that he or she could ponder where in the puzzle of restoration each piece fitted. It was common sight at historic sites throughout Turkey.

It made me chuckle that this was the kind of puzzle that needed a crane to assemble. We actually saw a huge crane in use at one site with disgruntled looking workmen standing around while an archaeologist directed the crane to move a presumably several ton block of stone about. How about this way? Or this way? No, maybe this way ...

This image is my first attempt at using the Photoshop luminance mask technique of Tony Kuyper. He has some excellent and fascinating tutorials on his website. On first read it's terribly complex stuff, but with practice I think it will come to be a lot easier, and it looks (amongst other things) like a great alternative to doing HDR with specialist HDR software like Photomatix. The luminance mask technique is far more manual and allows superb control of the final image. It's well worth a very slow and careful read on his site, and it's also well worth downloading his photoshop actions so you can try it for yourself.

This particular photo is not HDR and was not bracketed. I did try a single exposure tone-mapping of it in Photomatix, but in this case I prefer the far more natural and contrasty look that came from using luminance masks.

I'm sure I'll have a lot more to say on this technique later, but first I need many more late nights to fiddle on it.

This is the Mustafa Pasha or Terrace Pavillion at the amazing Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, Turkey. It also seems to be known as the Sofa Pavillion, and the word Kiosk is often used in place of Pavillion. Little know fact: the work kiosk comes from the Turkish köşk, meaning pavillion. Neat.

Topkapi Palace was the main residence of the Sultans of the Ottoman Empire from the mid-1400s to mid-1800s or so. It became a museum in the 1920s when Turkey became a new state. It's a huge complex with a large amount of impressive and well-preserved Ottoman architecture.

This particular room was built in the Rococo style in the 1750s to give the Sultan of the day and his friends a comfy viewing spot for the events in the gardens below. Probably on their sofas, hence the one name of the room. Or on their ottomans, perhaps? Ottomans on sofas? This view gives a good idea of the opulence of the palace. I don't think they believed you could overdo gold.

HDR Stuff

I was glad that this shot worked out well. The room was closed to the public, and I could only get to view it through the windows from outside. Tripods were banned in the palace complex. I held the camera steady against the glass and set the shooting speed to high for a fairly well aligned handheld HDR bracket set of three (-2, 0, +2).

This is also for me a rare example of processing with Nik Software's HDR Efex Pro. I quite like the software, but don't find it as intuitive to use as Photomatix Pro. HDR Efex Pro has the cool feature of control points, which allow you to set a point on the photo from which you can set the amount of exposure level or saturation or sharpness or whatever in a certain radius from the point, and it auto-detects edges to contain its effect. It seems to do a good job of it, but often feels a bit fiddly to me. It is on my agenda to fiddle with more though, because it feels pretty powerful, and I'm sure there are some very good effects to be had, pun not intended.

In the old city of Sultanahmet the streets are thrumming with tourists and markets and restaurants and vendors at most times of the day or night. This lively ground level is replicated up in the sky, where every hotel jostles to have the highest roof terrace with some view of the minarets and the sea. This roofscape is the world that tourists inhabit for breakfast and dinner and sundowner drinks, and perhaps reach a vague nodding acquaintance with their counterparts on the adjacent roof terraces.

This was the view from our particular terrace one beautiful dusk in autumn last year. That's the Blue Mosque in the background, just a few minutes walk away. A benefit of staying this close to the Blue Mosque (apart from it being one of the great buildings of the world, of course) was waking every morning to the beautifully evocative call to prayer. There are apparently some 3,000 mosques in Istanbul and it's quite impressive when they all start the call just before dawn. It makes you remember that you are somewhere very exotic and far from home from the moment you wake up each morning.

I'm not very good at getting up early. You can't persuade me to actually go to bed in the early hours, but by the same token, you can't get me up very easily either. Which is a pity, because look at this dawn light. All this spectacular light is just out there waiting for those crazy enough to get up that early. Which is usually other people. I took this shot at dawn on my third day in the strange and wonderful city of Istanbul, which meant getting up quite a bit earlier, wandering up to the newly found tram station, buying a tram token (called a jeton in Turkey) from the awesomely named Jeton-matik machine, remembering which direction the tram travels in and which station to get off, all while lugging my camera bag and tripod, and all before dawn. It was only the thought of breakfast and strong Turkish coffee that kept me going. But totally worth it!

This shot was taken from the Galata Bridge, where the Golden Horn meets the Bosphorus. This area is crazy with commuter ferries in the day, but was quite calm at this time. That's the Bosphorus Bridge in the background, which connects Europe with Asia. And that's Istanbul, one foot in Europe and one in Asia, one in the Roman Empire and one on some other planet entirely. It's an amazing place, and in some other life I'd be moving there. Or maybe this one, some day?

Before and After

I think this Before and After is really cool. All those crazy colours you see in the final version? They're all there in the before version, I haven't added any colours, but you can see that they do look a little pasty. The camera is seeing all the stuff that's there, but it's not doing a very good job of capturing it well. By taking a range of several bracketed exposures I have a sequence of images where each part of the scene is captured with optimal exposure in one of the images, capturing the light and colour as it should be, but just for that small portion of the image. Then all that remains, and this is the fun part, is to get the best parts from each image, combine them into one master image, and then amp the hell out of the colours and detail!

Don't even think of shooting in JPEG if you want to do this, you need to shoot in RAW. RAW files store just ridiculously more data and colour information than the equivalent JPEG would. Then multiply that amount of data by the number of bracketed shots you are combining in your HDR, and you get the vast amounts of recorded data for the scene that allows you to pull the best exposure and colour from every part of the image.

What I also like about this is that you can see the stunning things HDR can do with water, skies and reflections. The natural reflections in the water are turned really punchy, and the blown out detail in the sky is brought back. Those are the kind of things that can make an HDR image jump up, slap you in the face, and make you go 'woah!'